International negotiators in Switzerland ran up against their deadline for the Iran nuclear talks — and then kept on running, insisting that there’s enough reason to believe that maybe they’ll get far enough on Wednesday, or maybe a couple of days after that. How many, they won’t say. What happens if that’s not enough, no one seems to fully know.

Obama’s been talking about getting an Iran deal since he first ran for president in 2008 and taking heat for it from the beginning. In year seven of his presidency, it has emerged as a key lingering piece of the transformational foreign policy he wants as his legacy and become central to dealings across a region where every week brings a new crumbling country, each with a new kaleidoscope of shifting alliances to deal with.

Obama’s decision to back down from the threat of strikes on Syria in 2013 is still seen as revealing Obama’s unwillingness to fight by many of the same regional leaders who fear he’s willing to give away too much to get an agreement now.

An Iran deal, in the White House’s view, simultaneously has no direct connection to the rest of the trouble in the Middle East and is inextricably tied to everything the administration is facing. That includes a fractured relationship with the Israeli prime minister who, along with the Saudis, is strongly opposed to the Iran talks; the United States and Saudi Arabia backing the rebels in Syria while Iran backs Bashar Assad; the Houthis in Yemen against Al Qaeda while the Saudis attack; all while Americans and Iranians align to fight off Islamic State in Iraq.

“If a deal happens, even in overtime, that is a meaningful contribution to Middle East security. Period. There is uncertainty about Iran’s long-term trajectory and its interests in places like Yemen, Syria and Iraq. The region as a whole is concerned about Iran, and rightfully so. But like it or not, Iran gets a vote in what happens,” said former State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley. “The negotiations have established a credible channel for the U.S. and Iran to manage areas of overlapping interests and areas of conflicting interests.”

Obama was briefed late Tuesday by the negotiating team via video conference, the White House said.

Earlier in the day, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said that discussions have stalled only over issues related to the nuclear program, not other disputes in the region.

Before the West Wing gets to sorting out what happens next, Obama and his aides are trying to sort out where they are now — and how long they’ll be in this limbo. Going a couple of days past the deadline, goes the thinking, would be a lot different than going two weeks, and not just because Congress will be back in session by then.

The broader narrative of instability in the region is already problematic, the White House knows, and failing to get an agreement after all this buildup would make that worse.

They also know that it’ll be hard to claim a win even if they somehow squeak out a deal that Obama considers a good one. Any excitement will be drowned out by all other instability in the region and by the people in Congress and around the world who will attack any agreement.

It’s not like Obama was ever planning an Iran talks victory tour. The best case that the administration was expecting was for Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry to be cautious downers while the Europeans popped the corks on another uncertain win for international diplomacy.

But beyond repeating their cliché that “no deal is better than a bad deal,” there’s no sense of what getting no Iran deal would mean, or what Obama’s prepared to do if there isn’t one.

All of this comes as the administration is grappling with the reality of Tehran asserting itself in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, on top of its long-held presence in Lebanon through Hezbollah. Just Tuesday, the White House announced the lifting of the yearold hold on military aid to Egypt.

“The administration’s in the incongruous position, in a way, of trying to very sensibly see if we can keep them away from a nuclear weapon,” said Nicholas Burns, an undersecretary of state under President George W. Bush, who said he still believes a deal will happen. “At the same time, the U.S. is going to have to push back on Iran by becoming a more overt leader in the region.”

The military option, many believe, is only “on the table,” as Obama and his aides keep promising, in the loosest, most metaphysical sense. There is a military, and technically Obama does have the option of using it, but he’s not going to start a war.

Obama has kept threatening to walk away, with Earnest saying Tuesday that the president is prepared to quit talks before the June 30 deadline (which is really, really a hard deadline, he insisted). But the president has invested too much of his credibility, time and energy over too many years to make many believe he actually would.

Obama’s “very interested in these serious talks, he recognizes the stakes here, but what’s also true is that it’s time for Iran to make some serious decisions,” Earnest said Tuesday at the White House.

Republicans didn’t wait for midnight in Lausanne to begin piling on.

“Another Obama red line comes and goes,” came the hit from the Republican National Committee.

“It’s time for the United States to regain the upper hand and quit negotiating out of weakness,” said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who has positioned himself as a chief antagonist of the administration on Iran.

“I have no doubt that the Iranian negotiating team in Lausanne wants to get a deal. What we of course never quite know is what the internal politics back in Tehran look like,” said British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond late last week, on a visit to Washington before joining the final stage of talks. “We have to respect that and understand that in our negotiating stance, just as the Iranians have to understand that the U.S. administration and the U.S. Congress are not necessarily the same thing.”

Earnest tried repeatedly to convince skeptical reporters at the White House that the president is making a hard demand for progress despite letting the deadline come and go.

“I think it’s fair to say that we’ve reached our limit right now, in as far as these conversations have been going for a year,” he said. “At the same time, it also doesn’t make sense if we are getting serious engagement from the other side to just abruptly end the talks based on this deadline. If we are making progress toward the finish line, then we should keep going.”

Obama does need a win on Iran, Burns said, but a win isn’t necessarily an agreement. Among the other options would be using the failed talks to persuade the Europeans to join in new, stricter sanctions.

“If the result is that we can constrain the Iranians and keep them contained, and keep them away from a nuclear weapon and keep the sanctions regime in place, I think that’s a good result for the United States,” Burns said. “If the talks fall apart, it means the administration has been hardheaded where it should be.”